


science sometimes sleeps

by buckgaybarnes



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Bickering, Cuddling, Established Relationship, M/M, Pre-Canon, origin story of the ubiquitous lab couch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-09 00:22:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18905695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckgaybarnes/pseuds/buckgaybarnes
Summary: “I am not having a sofa from the garbage in my laboratory,” Hermann says, smacking it with the end of his cane. “I want it out of here, Newton. Now. Immediately.”





	science sometimes sleeps

**Author's Note:**

> WHEW BABY!!! this is my piece from a newt/hermann zine i co-organized/co-admined spring 2019! it was a lot of work but a lot of fun, and the finished product looks Beautiful and everyone's pieces are amazing, so all worth it. check out our twitter @NewmannZine if you'd like to find out more about it!

“Exciting news!” Newton says, slamming the door to the lab open so loudly that Hermann jumps out of his seat and sloshes coffee down his blazer and over the highly classified form he’d been filling out. “I found a couch!”

“A couch?” Hermann echoes. He doesn’t bother with an attempt to salvage the document. “I was under the impression you were getting us lunch.” Newton’s been gone for two hours on what was meant to be a thirty minute trip to a restaurant a mere two blocks away, and he’s returned half-soaked with a suspicious lack of takeaway bags. Suspicious and infuriating. (Hermann is _hungry_.)

“Well, I was, obviously, that was the original plan,” Newton says, tossing his jacket to the floor (on _Hermann’s_ side), “and then it started raining so I took a shortcut down this alleyway and I found a _couch_. Up for grabs. Totally free. Can you believe it?”

Hermann can. “We don’t need a couch,” he says, “let alone one from an alleyway. You didn’t take it, did you?”

“Not yet. Paid some dudes to haul it back here for me,” Newton says, and shoots Hermann a double thumbs-up. Something apologetic flits, briefly, across his face, and he lowers his thumbs. “Oh, shit. I forgot our food.”

“It’s fine,” Hermann sighs. He has leftovers in the— _explicitly_ —experiment-free lab fridge, and to be frank, he was expecting something along these lines to happen. This is hardly the first time Newton’s been distracted on his ventures out into the city.

It’s hardly the first time Newton’s raised the prospect of a communal (as communal as something for two can be) lab couch, either. He’s constantly complaining about the lack of comfortable furniture in their workspace, constantly submitting requisition forms with the _misc._ blanks filled in with bean bag chairs or recliners or large pillows or _anything_ , Newton wrote once _, literally anything, I’ll take a pool floaty_ , but he’s gotten denied every single time, form sent back with REJECTED stamped across in bold red letters. There’s barely enough in their budget for what they need, let alone luxuries like _chairs_ , and—as Hermann frequently reminds Newton—they have better things to do during their work hours than relax.

Newton’s begun pacing the lab, hands held out in two _L_ ’s in front of him and peering through them as if he’s some sort of surveyor. “We can put it here,” he finally declares, coming to a halt directly over the yellow tape line and pointing at the wall opposite. There’s a little gap between their sides, between one of Hermann’s boards and one of Newton’s great big specimen tanks. It could, hypothetically, fit a couch big enough for two. “Half my side, half your side. It’s perfect.”

Hermann’s skeptical at the concept, and even more skeptical when Newton—with the aid of some jaeger pilots he bribed—actually manages to wheel the thing inside. It’s bulky, and ancient-looking, and a rusty brown, and the cushions are stained and discolored. One of its arms is ripped. And it _reeks_ , worse than Newton’s samples even do. “I am not having a sofa from the _garbage_ in my laboratory,” Hermann says, smacking it with the end of his cane. “I want it out of here, Newton. Now. Immediately.”

Newton was kneeling and scrubbing at one of the stains with an old rag and some lemon-scented cleaning spray, and now he curls an arm over a battered cushion defensively. “It’s not that bad!”

“It smells horrendous.”

Newton sticks his tongue out at him. “So do you,” he says, resuming his scrubbing, “and I’m not throwing _you_ out. When’s the last time you did laundry, dude?” If Hermann were a lesser man, he’d stick his tongue out in return, but he simply straightens his shoulders and returns to his chalkboard in a huff. (He doesn’t have the _time_ to do laundry, and Newton doesn’t happen to smell wonderful, either.) After a few minutes, Newton tosses his rag down and exclaims in triumph. “See,” he says, and points to a moderately less discolored, but moderately more damp, spot, “there, it’s already cleaner! I’ll have it fixed up in no time.”

It’s pointless arguing with Newton, especially when it comes to something Newton’s had his heart set on for so long. “You have one day,” Hermann says, “or you’re putting it right back where you found it.”

Newton does, actually, manage to fix up the couch to something that’s—not exactly _new_ , but not exactly something you’d expect to find for free in a dirty alleyway, either. He’s gotten rid of most of the stains and sacrificed one of his PPDC-issued fleece blankets to act as a makeshift cover, and though it lacks throw pillows, Hermann must admit it looks _cozy._ At least the smell is gone. It’s a noticeable improvement, and for that reason (to Newton’s delight), though Hermann doubts he, personally, will ever use it, he declares, “The couch may stay for now.”

A trial run is all it is, until the couch proves to be too inconvenient or too much of a nuisance to keep. (Hermann would not put it past either of them to find some way to work it into their daily arguments, and he can already see some brewing on the horizon, over whose side of the couch is whose, over Newton’s tendency to kick his filthy boots up on absolutely everything.) Newton takes a shine to it immediately: he spends his lunch breaks on it, his coffee breaks, even his informal and unscheduled Nap Breaks (which had, until then, been delegated to a small spot under Newton’s desk just large enough to fit him).

Truthfully, he makes it seem highly appealing. Hermann still refuses to use it on principle.

 

He finally caves in on one particularly rainy day where his joints ache particularly badly, especially after hours of slouching in front of his chalkboard, and his desk chair is simply too rigid to give him the support he wants. The couch is there, and cozy, and vacant (Newton’s overseeing some sort of shipment outside), and certainly Newton won’t object if he takes a little rest on it—it’s _communal_ , after all—certainly the end of the world won’t accelerate if Hermann puts his chalk down for a moment. Hermann slips his glasses back round his neck as he sinks into the cushions, and he doesn’t _mean_ to close his eyes, only means to relax, but the next thing he knows the harsh fluorescent overhead lights have been dimmed and he’s being roused by something warm and breathing and Newton-shaped tucking itself under his arm. Instinctively, Hermann smiles and draws him closer, before it dawns on him they’re _not_ , actually, in their bed back in their quarters, then decides he doesn’t care.

“You’re using the couch,” Newton says in his ear, winding two sturdy arms around Hermann’s waist and slotting their chests together, Newton soft, Hermann bony. He’s careful not to shift too much weight onto Hermann, just pillows his head on Hermann’s shoulder.

“Mm,” Hermann says. He brushes his lips over Newton’s forehead. “Regrettably. Don’t grow used to it.”

“This is the real reason I wanted it,” Newton says, and Hermann cracks an eye open to see him grinning cheekily. His glasses are tucked into his shirt pocket. “This, and—” He twists his fingers in the fabric of Hermann’s sweater and kisses him once, sweetly and chastely. “Perfect makeout spot.”

“How unprofessional of you,” Hermann says, and closes his eyes and accepts Newton’s next few kisses gladly. He’s far more susceptible to accepting on-the-clock displays of affection from Newton when he’s sleepy or in a good mood, and to their mutual luck, Hermann’s currently both.

“Couch can stay?” Newton murmurs.

Dubious origins notwithstanding, it _is_ terribly convenient. “I suppose.”

**Author's Note:**

> sorry i've been a little MIA with posting on here lately, i was busy with graduating and stuff lmfao
> 
> find me on twitter @hermanngaylieb and tumblr (where i post ficlets) at hermannsthumb as usual!


End file.
